1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to particulate matter transport device and, more particularly, to a portable, gas-powered, general purpose, pneumatic transport device.
2. Description of the Related Art
From large-scale industrial operations down to residential home situations, many people are faced with transporting large volumes of materials from place to place. Among these materials is the category that includes granular and similar substances such as sawdust, leaves, sand, dirt and other similar materials that typically requires the use of a range of equipment from shovels and wheel barrows to front-end loaders and dump trucks, depending upon the amount of material being moved. In either case, the task is burdensome in the sense that several repetitious operations are required in order to complete the job.
Furthermore, these methods make it difficult to move the materials in a complete manner, especially in the case of granular substances, due to the inability of the equipment to pick up the material completely. As a result, these operations suffer from inefficiencies that result in wasted time and, in the industrial setting, wasted money. Accordingly, there is a need for a means by which these materials can be transported efficiently and completely, thus minimizing the time and costs associated therewith.
Conventional material transport means tend to suffer from the aforementioned draw backs in part due to the extremely small size of individual pieces of material. The use of large shovels and front-end loaders makes it virtually impossible to do a complete job and tend to slow the process due to the repetitive nature of these operations.
In the previous art, several patents disclose portable blowers used to feed cellulose insulation into a building structure. These include U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,033, issued in the name of Miller et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,560,307, issued in the name of Deitesfeld, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,338, issued in the name of Mudgett.
Several patents disclose blower systems used to transport granular materials typically stored in silos such as corn, grain, etc. However, these devices are generally mounted in a permanent manner near or upon the silo itself. These include U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,133, issued in the name of Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,412, issued in the name of Shakshober, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,227, issued in the name of Shakshober et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,174, issued in the name of Wild, discloses a sawdust removal apparatus for collecting dust from power tools. While this device is not directly related to the present invention, it is included for reference purposes.
The problem with many of these devices is that the particulate matter must be manually fed into the main housing of the invention, thus still requiring significant manual labor on the part of the operator. No easy means of transporting the material from the pile to the invention is disclosed. Also, many of these devices are electrically powered, and necessitate use of the invention near an electrical outlet. Thus, the scope of application is severely limited.
Many of these devices rely on gravity feeding to place the particulate matter into the device before it is pneumatically moved to another location. This type of configuration increases the risk of blockages of the inlets into the device.
A search of the prior art did not disclose any patents that read directly on the claims of the instant invention. Consequently, a need has been felt for providing an apparatus and method which overcome the problems cited above.